Our Objectives

The Center for Telepsychiatry and e-Behavioral Health (CTeBH) is actively engaged in helping our field effectively deal with the problem of lack of access that can sometimes force patients to travel long distances to obtain mental health services, or forgo such services altogether. Aside from helping address the problems associated with access to mental health care, telepsychiatry also has the potential to address a pressing and difficult challenge in healthcare delivery system today: the integration of science-based treatment practices into the routine clinical care.

As the utilization of telepsychiatry grows and the most pressing access barriers to mental health care become smaller, the need for significant scholarly examination of the parameters of telepsychiatric care become increasingly important. These parameters can range from what mental health services are best suited for telepsychiatric use to workforce training curricula; from how to evaluate telepsychiatry quality and effectiveness to how to organize and maintain group services. These questions are also of significant importance to the mental health delivery process for both civilian and military patients and service providers. They establish the need for a telepsychiatry center and also create the opportunity to fund the operations of a center through both clinical revenues and grants. CTeBH helped establish interdisciplinary organization and focus on developing and testing new models of mental health care with increased access; knowledge dissemination; medical and behavioral staff training; and research funding. The specific objectives and goals of CTeBH include:

1. Access to Care.
2. Knowledge Dissemination.
3. Education and Training.
4. Research.